It was one of these limestone caverns, where Indian remains had been found, that I visited, for it was in such hiding-places the poor Arawaks took refuge from the tender mercies of their Spanish conquerors, who, at the most moderate computation, accounted for some 60,000 of them before the English occupation under Cromwell. The entrance was up a path leading from the main road, and was by no means conspicuous, but once inside, the cave was spacious and lofty; the stalactites hanging from the roof were of a very curious formation. Two of Mrs M——’s children accompanied me, and an overseer, with two attendant “boys,” carried torches. It was very rough walking and fearfully hot, slippery and wet here and there. In one place, which the children called the banqueting-hall, from its vast proportions and high roof, we startled thousands of rat-bats, who had taken up their habitation in the deep recesses of the stalactites which hung over our heads. Two were knocked over, and I secured one; they have bat’s wings attached to a mouse-like body. At last we came to a full stop, an unscaleable barrier of rock barred our way; the other side, they told me, was one of those underground rivers so common in the Cockpit Country, of which I shall speak further on; they run through the interstices between the limestone rocks. However, we contented ourselves with what we had seen, and were glad enough to breathe fresh air after nearly an hour’s subterranean exploration.
The West Indian way of living, especially on these pens, strikes one as being the most suitable to the climate. We rose before 7 A.M., coffee was ready on the verandah at 7.30. The mistress of the house fed her poultry, and looked after household matters till 11. I made my excursion to the cave, walked or sketched until that hour, when the household retired to their bedrooms, where baths had been prepared; we then made our toilet for the day. Breakfast, which was similar to our luncheon, was served at mid-day; tea about 3.30, before we went for a drive; dinner, being a moveable feast, according to whatever constituted the afternoon programme, was at any hour between 5 and 7. On this particular day the buggy had been lent for a funeral. The difficulties of providing for sudden emergencies of this nature in a hot country, in a hilly and sparsely-inhabited region, struck me forcibly. The seats and cover were removed from the carriage, upon which wooden planks were laid so as to make a kind of platform; on this the coffin rested. “There are some gruesome things connected with funerals in these parts, where a coffin, or ‘box’ has to be put together in a few hours,” Mr M—— said. Often, when death seemed a certainty, they had to send out “boys” to collect the necessary deals for the coffin, and set about making it before the breath was out of a man’s body. Unless the gravediggers were well primed with rum, said he, they would not dig the grave, “for fear of duppy springing up, buckra.” But the corpse expectant may recover occasionally, and the coffin then is calmly kept for use at a future date. Having seen some graves on the estate, neatly bricked over and cemented, in one of my walks, I asked if they belonged to the family who had formerly lived at N——, when Mrs M—— explained to me that it was the custom, if a bereaved widower thought fit to take a second wife into his hut, to make a brick erection, firmly cemented together, over that part of his compound where the former partner of his life had been laid to rest, or at any rate over the spot where he thought he had buried her, for fear of being disturbed by her ghostly wanderings. She had once enquired of a negro, who was hard at work on his wife’s grave, why he was taking so much trouble with it; he told her it was to “keep down duppy, missus.”
A beautiful drive one afternoon to the Maggoty Falls on the Black River was one of the most exquisite I had in Jamaica. The falls were 13 miles away; part of the road lay over a savannah, where deadly poison lurked in morass and swamp, and no white man dared live too near to these breeding-places of the malarial mosquito. The exquisite peacock-green hues of the Black River water must be seen to be appreciated. On either bank profuse parasitical growth obscured the most majestic trees; tropical foliage was to be seen here at its very best.
The heat was most oppressive; it rained as we returned. The suffocating atmosphere in the lowlands made us glad to climb the steep hills which lay between us and my friend’s estate.
The Black River is the only navigable one in the island; lighters bring their cargoes up a considerable distance into the interior of it. In this neighbourhood I remarked again the size of the cotton-tree, with the wonderful spurs it sends out from its roots. This is not the red silk cotton-tree of India and of Java, known as the Simal tree from the seed-vessel containing red silk cotton; the cotton-tree of Jamaica has seed-vessels containing white silk cotton. The Arawaks attached a religious importance to this tree, and at the present day the son of Ham regards it as the haunt and home of “duppies.” The aboriginal idea was that “after the earth was made the Supreme Being, our Father, our Maker,” made His throne in the cotton-tree. The legend of this Arawak belief is worthy of note, and I quote it as given by Bret:
“Still no life was in the land,
No sweet birds sang songs of love,
O’er the plain and through the grove,
Nothing then was seen to move.
From that bright green throne His hand